PBL in Educational Psychology: Potentials and Challenges

This article discusses practical and theoretical aspects related to PBL. In the first section of the article, potentials related to professional training of forthcoming educational psychologists following PBL-principles are analyzed. It is argued that PBL constitutes a good platform for creating stimulating interplays between theory and practice. In the second section of the article we discuss some of the theoretical underpinnings in PBL. We discuss whether PBL is prone to a ‘form-content-dualism’, in which attention is centred on the form (the problem) and less on the content of learning. Afterwards, it is discussed whether PBL potentially leads to an individualization of the learning process. Finally, we discuss whether the PBL-literature primarily tends toward portraying student learning as a matter of acquisition of knowledge, and therefore ignores the ontogical and identity-related processes in learning.